


With so Much of Himself

by KrisseyCrystal (AisukuriMuStudio)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, light Soymilk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisukuriMuStudio/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorey remembers looking down at the image of his skin pulled back and he remembers the concave dip of a hollow stomach.</p><p>He would never be able to forget it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With so Much of Himself

Every seraph knew that humans needed to eat. Even in Elysia, even _before_ Sorey came to them in the delicate form of a human baby, they had always been aware that humans and seraphim operated and functioned in far different ways. So Sorey was never neglected growing up; he was fed. He was clothed. He was given space to sleep, to read, to grow.

And though Mikleo doesn’t remember the moment Sorey first discovered that seraphim didn’t need the same things he needed to live, Sorey does.

He remembers.

Because he remembers being ten, and he remembers watching Mikleo as he spoke with Gramps. Sorey had been eating his grilled prickleboar meat, and he remembers watching the shine of Mikleo’s hair in the moonlight through the hut’s window, and he remembers being able to just barely see the outline of Mikelo’s slender torso through the sheen of his oversized nightshirt. He remembers it suddenly occurring to him—for whatever reason—that Mikleo didn’t need to eat to be beautiful. Mikleo didn’t need to do anything. He just _was._

And Sorey remembers wondering for the first time what that was like. Not necessarily the not eating part, but the beautiful part.

He remembers looking at his reflection in the small mirror in his hut, wondering if he, too, was beautiful. He wasn’t like Mikleo. He didn’t have the other seraphs cooing after him and running their fingers through his hair and muttering over his “jewels of eyes” every time they saw him.

In fact, Sorey couldn’t remember if _any_ seraphim had ever commented on his appearance before. He was sure it had happened; someone _must_ have said _something_. He was silly to think that nobody had ever complimented how he looked, right?

He remembers frowning. He remembers not being able to sleep that night, even when Mikleo turned in right beside him—another thing seraphim don’t _really_ need. Another thing _Mikleo_ doesn’t need, though he goes on doing it anyway.

He remembers waiting for Mikleo’s breathing to even out. And he remembers the burning under his skin that night, too. The wanting.

The wanting for what?

 

* * *

 

Mikleo remembers the moment Sorey started wearing the Elysalark-feather earrings. He remembers it because he remembers Sorey’s reaction the moment the water seraph had scrunched his nose up, thinking the new accessories weird and unnecessary.

It had been both strange and alarming the way Sorey’s eyes had widened at such a simple, wordless gesture. It was like something frozen, or panicked, had crossed his face.

“Y-you don’t like them?” Sorey had asked, and for a single moment, Mikleo debated changing his mind. Was Sorey really so distressed about it?

But he had never before held back his opinion with his best friend. They were closer to each other than their own bones.

Mikleo only shrugged. He crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re all right, I guess.” Surely the matter wasn’t _that_ important? They tried on new clothes all the time, particularly Sorey. He actually wore _out_ his clothes to a degree that Mikleo never would.

But he remembers the way it hurt when Sorey took them off almost immediately afterwards. He remembers the nervous, hollow laugh his friend gave. He remembers watching the feathers bend and fray inside Sorey’s clenched fists. Not being able to see Sorey’s face as he muttered, “You’re right. They’re weird. I should just, uh—never mind.”

“Sorey—“

“It’s cool, Mikleo. Don’t worry about it.”

He remembers the smile Sorey threw his way, over his shoulder. He remembers the worry that gnawed at his own chest.

And Mikleo remembers that night how odd it was to see Sorey pick at his food, picking out such small bites to carefully eat.

He remembers their twelfth birthday. He remembers giving Sorey a new pair of Elysalark feather earrings. He remembers Sorey laughing about it before putting them on.

“I thought you didn’t like ‘em,” Sorey had muttered. There was a small, pleasant flush to his face.

Mikleo smiled. He crossed his arms over his chest and relaxed. “Eh. I never said _that,”_ he pointed out. After all, if Sorey liked them, all the more to put up with the dorky way they rounded his face.

“Besides…” He remembers watching Sorey for a moment more after that; watching the way his friend’s eyes just seemed so quietly _happy_ with the gift he had just been given. And maybe it was the sun; maybe it was the way the red-hinged gold of the feathers complimented Sorey’s green eyes, but something about the earrings added…a certain innocence to his friend. Something ethereal; almost—

“—they kind of make you look like a seraph.”

Sorey’s eyes snapped to Mikleo’s. He remembers the shock in them, the way they rounded out.

“…really…?” the human breathed.

Mikleo shrugged. “Sure.” A teasing smirk spread over pearly white teeth. “But you’re still _Sorey_ , though.”

And to that, Sorey had laughed, and whatever cloud that had lingered above them for whatever time it had been since Sorey first threw away his feather earrings, suddenly disappeared. Mikleo remembers he had been happy to see it go, happy to see his friend finally so relaxed and not so tense all the time.

But to this day, he still wonders if comparing Sorey’s appearance to seraphim was, in the end, actually the right thing to do. 

 

* * *

 

Sorey remembers being thirteen, and he remembers the first time he got up when Mikleo was sleeping. He remembers staring at the floor of his hut for what felt like ages, waiting for Mikleo to wake and ask him what he’s doing. He remembers debating if the wooden boards would creak underneath him and give him away. His heart beat hard, but he remembers deciding that doing it inside was at least better than doing it outside, where some seraphim who still didn’t sleep had their eyes watching at all times.

He remembers getting down. He remembers doing sit-ups. Simple, quiet exercises that Mason had taught him while training to hunt pickleboars.

And he remembers doing it again and again.

 

* * *

 

Mikleo doesn’t think he remembers a time before Sorey was fidgety. Where Gramps didn’t have to say, for the thousandth time during their lessons, to “sit still.” Where even when they were exploring ruins and examining a new chamber, Sorey didn’t dance around at least a little bit.

It was like the teenager couldn’t stop _moving._ He’d rock onto his toes while standing. Tap his fingers against his arm if they were crossed over his chest. Twirl this way and that, or pace while thinking.

Even reading wasn’t a stationary act. He’d bounce his leg and shift positions every five seconds. Lay on his stomach and swing his legs to a near-constant rhythm.

He had thought, at the time, that it was just part of Sorey being Sorey. Sorey had always been full of energy, anyway. It wasn’t something to think much about. But Mikleo doesn’t think he can _recall_ any instances where Sorey was still except for in sleep.

And he remembers when he discovered that even _that_ wasn’t the case.

He remembers when Sorey woke him while exercising in the middle of the night, and he remembers thinking how weird it was, to wake up and see his best friend doing push-ups on the wooden floorboards of their home, even with no fire to light his face or let him see what he was doing.

But most of all, he remembers how wide Sorey’s eyes were when he caught him.

He remembers staring at Sorey as Sorey stared back, and he remembers beginning to say his name—but even before he could get it out of his mouth, Sorey was standing up and hurrying to his side of the bed. All the while, a constant stream of words poured out of his mouth. “Sorry! Did I wake you? I didn’t mean to, haha—I was just—uh—couldn’t sleep—but whoa! I’m tired now, haha! Are you tired? ‘Cuz I’m tired. Time for bed! ‘Night!”

And then he remembers, as Sorey threw the blanket over himself and turned his back to him to try to sleep, that the most baffling thing of the whole matter—the thing that _really_ left Mikleo speechless in that moment—hadn’t really been that Sorey was exercising in the middle of the night at all.

But more so the fact that he hadn’t _noticed._

 

* * *

 

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Rose tells him.

Mikleo sighs, arms crossed over the balcony of their room at the inn in Pendrago. “I know,” he says.

And he does. After all, how could the seraphim of Elysia have ever known how serious it was—what Sorey was doing to himself? How could they have had the _language_ to identify or describe what was really going on?

Mikleo remembers how, when they were fourteen and he had first discovered Sorey wasn’t eating, it was hard for him to even be able to feel as if it were so bad of a thing. He himself didn’t need to eat, after all.

But that was the problem, too. That instinct he had—the instinct they _all_ had—to immediately base Sorey’s experiences off of seraphic ones, because of a lack of exposure to a separate narrative with a completely different set of needs. ( _And all because humans and seraphim have not, for so long a time, lived together,_ says a persistent voice in the back of his head.) It made this situation just _that_ much more frustrating. That much more awful.

Mikleo could have _had_ no idea of the severity of what Sorey was doing to himself. There was no way.

But that also meant that consequently, neither did Sorey.

After a moment, the water seraph straightens up to look behind him, where their sleeping Shepherd lay. His cheek is bunched up against a dark plum pillow.

Mikleo presses his lips together.

“It’s easier to tell myself that when I think about what it was like two years ago,” he finally confesses quietly. He is careful to keep his gaze on his childhood friend, unable to face the Squire beside him.

Rose doesn’t force him to turn.

Mikleo doesn’t know what to say. “As it is now,” he adds and bows his head, his bangs shadowing his face from view, “I can’t help but…”

“You can’t help but feel a little responsible, huh?”

Rose’s voice was too knowing.

Mikleo sighs, and opens. “I should have _seen_ it. _Especially_ this second time around.” _I should have seen the signs. I should have—_

“But…you _did,_ Mikleo,” Rose mutters. She bends her head to catch the seraph’s eye. “You _did_ see it. _You’re_ the one who even said something to me about it.”

But the unspoken, _It’s not enough,_ hangs between them.

And Rose doesn’t know what to say to make it go away.

 

* * *

 

When Gramps first discovered that Sorey wasn’t eating, it was the first time Mikleo had ever seen the elderly seraph truly _afraid._ And though both Sorey and Mikleo know they will never forget _that_ moment, what Sorey doesn’t remember as well—and what Mikleo does—is what happened afterwards.

Mikleo remembers how Gramps refused to speak to them at the same time. When he called Sorey and Mikleo to his hut, he forced the water seraph to wait outside while he summoned Sorey in first.

Mikleo remembers the waiting had been torture. He hadn’t been aware of what it was Gramps wanted to speak to them about.

All he knew was that when Sorey finally came out of Gramps’ hut, he had a certain, awful pallor to his face. And when he saw it, Mikleo suddenly thought of breathless push-ups in the middle of the night and a plate full of tiny, broken food and immediately, he had a feeling that he knew what it was Gramps wanted to discuss.

Sorey bowed his head. He whispered, “I’ll…uh…”

And Mikleo knew what he was going to say without him needing to finish. He nodded. “Yeah,” he said quietly back. “I’ll be right there.”

Sorey nodded back.

Mikleo remembers how, when he finally got back to Sorey’s hut, it was already night. When he walked inside, all that met him was darkness and shadow. Not even the lanterns hanging off of the beams or the wood in the fireplace had been lit. It was as if the whole house was asleep.

“…Sorey.”

But there was a small bundle under the covers in Sorey’s room to the side. When Mikleo spoke, the ball curled up further, and made no response.

Mikleo walked towards the bed, not knowing what to do.

He remembers staring at his friend. The form of him, through his blankets. He remembers listening to the silence as if it could give him guidance, as if it could tell him what to say that would help Sorey. That would help the most important person in his _life._

“Gramps says it’s bad,” he had whispered instead, at a loss. His nails pressed into the palms of his hands.

There was a wince from under the blankets.  

Mikleo fidgeted with the ends of his sleeves before crossing his arms over his chest. “Is…there anything I can do to help?” he finally asked.

It was either the one question Sorey had been waiting for, or the one he hadn’t been expecting at all, because his form didn’t move from the blanket for a long time.

Finally, however, the covers did fall away.

Sorey sat up.

He ran a hand through his mussed, dark brown hair, but kept his green eyes on the navy velvet of the blanket in his lap. It was perhaps the first time Mikleo really took notice of how his friend looked. And perhaps, it was also the first time he had even realized just what it _was_ that not eating could do to a human.

Fifteen-years-old, and—what was it Gramps had called it? Self-starvation?

But oh, it was so much more than that, Mikleo remembers thinking. So much more than just _not eating,_ though he didn’t tell Gramps about Sorey’s workouts at night. Maybe he should have, he thinks now. But at that time, mirroring Sorey’s own young fifteen years, all he knew was that his friend was starving himself _—willingly—_ and Gramps said he might have been doing it for a long time.

“And if he continues to do this,” Gramps had muttered, leveled and calm even as he spoke such awful words. “It could get to a point it breeds Malevolence, Mikleo. Or—”

Mikleo remembers feeling like a balance beam in that fire-lit room, kneeling before the elderly seraph. Hinged on that single, two-letter word.

“—or it could kill him.”

So Mikleo looked at Sorey as Sorey stared at his lap.

And when Sorey finally spoke, it was heavily; quiet and subdued. “Is it…really so bad…?”

Mikleo didn’t know what to say. Slowly, so Sorey had time to give any sort of indication that his movement was unwelcome, he slid onto the end of the bed. He folded his legs underneath himself, and fit his hands under his shins.

“Gramps thinks so,” Mikleo finally murmured after a long pause. Sorey’s brow furrowed. He still didn’t look up, so Mikleo continued, “And…”

But whatever he was going to say next didn’t make it out of his throat. Mikleo wasn’t sure if it could. Did he want to say he thought it was bad, too? What _did_ he think about what Sorey was doing?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he thought of it; he didn’t know if he wanted to say. He didn’t even know if his own thoughts and opinions about it all were _important_ right now.

He just wanted Sorey to be okay.

But at the prolonged silence, Sorey’s face crumpled. His hands came up to his face; he hid away. His shoulders curled in.

 “…Mikleo?” came his muffled voice.

“Yeah?”

A tense breath. “I don’t know if I can stop.”

Mikleo inhaled quietly. “Can I ask why?” he murmured. _Why you’re doing this to yourself? At all?_

 “…it’s so…” Sorey seemed to struggle with how to describe it. “…it’s so _silly._ ”

“It’s not,” Mikleo answered.

For the first time that night, Sorey looked up.

And Mikleo doesn’t think proudly of his teenage responses to Sorey’s struggles, but saying those two words was perhaps the one thing Mikleo remembers doing right.

“It’ll… _sound_ silly.”

“It won’t.”

Mikleo remembers Sorey seemed to battle with something for a moment. Then, slowly, Sorey’s hands had lowered to the bed, pressing down against the mattress beneath him.

“Honestly?” the human said. A quiet mumble. “I guess…it kinda makes me feel better.”

Mikleo was careful not to frown. He just watched, keeping his expression schooled. He listened.

After a moment, Sorey continued. “I know it doesn’t make sense. ‘A human has to eat.’” He quotes the words as if they were by someone else; not his own. Not an idea he _wanted_ to own. “But I don’t know, it…”

At the struggle for words, Sorey’s face tightened. Distress lined his brow. “It…”

The silence stretched on.

Mikleo pressed his lips together. “…Sorey?”

“Yeah?” Sorey’s eyes snapped up.

Mikleo softened. “Is there any way I can help?”

At that, Sorey’s features pinched again. He frowned, the corners of his mouth bunching up. He bowed his head. After a long time, the human shrugged and looked to the side and it was then that Mikleo suddenly noticed through the moonlight of the open window the watery gleam in his friend’s eyes.

Sorey’s arms wrapped around himself. “I don’t want to _be_ this, Mikleo,” he said. His voice was rough, quiet.

“Be what?”

So was his seraph’s.

Sorey’s lips pressed together hard. He seemed to be in a great deal of pain. “ _All_ of this.” His right hand dug particularly hard into his side, bunching skin up along with his black shirt.

Mikleo began to reflect that pain, like ripples in a pond. “…what’s wrong with it?” _What’s wrong with ‘this’?_

But Sorey didn’t answer. He was tense for a long moment. He shrugged again.

And then finally, after a great deal of trying not to, he wept.

The young man curled in on himself as much as he could. He raised the heel of his left hand to his forehead.

Mikleo pulled forward immediately, his hands reaching for Sorey.

And when Sorey fell into his arms, Mikleo almost cried with him. He remembers so desperately wishing he could see what it was Sorey saw. And at the same time, wishing that Sorey could see what he did.

 

* * *

 

“Just don’t treat me any different, okay?”

When Sorey had been capable of words again, Mikleo remembers that he had said those words. He never forgot them.

“Now that you know, it’s not…ugh, here:  if you say a good thing, y’know, about—well…now that you know, I—I don’t know if I’ll believe it. Y’know? I mean, you’re still my best friend! And I totally lov—I mean—I!” A sigh. “Just don’t…be different. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t have said before this. Just be the same. Please?”

So Mikleo did. He kept to that request like it was his own personal oath.

He teased Sorey like he always did. Playfully insulted him. Laughed with him. Explored with him. He made sure that _nothing_ would be different, even though for Sorey, _everything_ was becoming different because Gramps was keeping him on such a strict eating regime. And Sorey being Sorey, he never once complained, even though it got hard for him.

Even though it got _hard._

Mikleo remembers being there, with Gramps, for every meal after that day while Sorey ate. He remembers trying to strike up a conversation around the tension in the room, trying to chip away at the ice that he could feel between them all. He remembers trying to make the entire process easier on Sorey too by taking his mind off of the food, especially on the days when Sorey so _clearly_ felt like throwing up and crying and maybe even giving in to the hate that he so badly wanted to feel for _everything about this._

It was only when the two were back in the safety of their shared hut that Sorey would let down his walls and break. He’d cough out the chunks that he stuck in the back of his mouth or in the sides of his cheeks into their waste bucket. He’d gag. He’d feel sick.

Sometimes, he’d sob.

“I couldn’t do it!” he’d say. He’d put his arm over his face, shaking. “I _can’t_ do this! I—oh _gods,_ Mikleo—I—I’m gonna—“

Mikleo always knew what that meant.

Immediately, he’d be there. He would push Sorey’s arm away from his face. Pull his friend back against him and press a hand to his forehead, brushing cool, icy fingers against his flush cheeks. His temples.

“Shhhhhh,” Mikleo would whisper to his friend’s pants, at a loss to say anything else—though he wanted to say several things at once. An “I know.” Perhaps an “I’m sorry,” as well as a, “You’re being so _brave._ ”

But none of it ever came. He just cradled Sorey as he tried to calm down, and soothed him as best he could.

Mikleo remembers feeling like he was trying to do everything he could for Sorey, but even then it wasn’t enough. There was no way to make the bad days easier, and no way to magically lift this—whatever-it-was—off of his friend’s shoulders.

Eventually, Mikleo convinced Gramps to go about feeding Sorey differently, in a way that was more gradual and not so intense. Not so all-at-once. Eventually, the entire village took it upon themselves to eat whenever Sorey did in order to help encourage him, to help normalize the act for him.

But they never realized that Sorey was affected _outside_ of food as well.

Mikleo remembers not wanting to tell them about Sorey’s exercises at night. Or rather, not knowing how. He hadn’t even been sure _he_ understood fully what was going on—both in Sorey’s head, and in Sorey’s body. He was pretty sure Sorey didn’t understand, either.

But it still felt like it wasn’t enough.

The most Mikleo could do was make sure Sorey never felt like he was lying to him. To make sure that their friendship—that _them_ —was something Sorey could always rely on, and could always turn to. Something that would never change.

So he never held back.

 

* * *

 

“Some fine lipstick on that pig.”

Sorey huffed and looked behind him. He glared. “Yes, Mikleo, we all know your opinion.”

For a moment, Mikleo wondered if he had pushed it too hard. He _had_ teased him with something similar just that morning, after all.

But something in Sorey’s green eyes during the short look his childhood friend gave him, to Mikleo’s relief, seemed much more comfortable after he spoke. When Alisha had complimented the garb on him—like so many people had just this morning alone—a certain stiffness had come to Sorey’s shoulders. A certain tension.

The water seraph had thought he’d help him out.

“What?” he said innocently. “Pigs are nice.”

And there—there it was. A ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of the newfound Shepherd’s lips as he turned back around to face the bewildered princess. Mikleo felt a wave of warmth at the sight.

 _Yeah. Don’t overthink it, Sorey,_ he wishes he could say. _They’re just complimenting you. It’s okay to have that now and then, you know._ But instead, he knows he’ll just continue to be the buffer Sorey needs between his mind and his conscience. The buffer he has continued to be, even after Sorey’s been eating and sleeping much better for the past couple years.

“I, uh, take it there’s a seraph present with you?” Alisha asked as her eyes flew to the side to try and see him.

But Mikleo only smiled, crossing his arms over his chest as Sorey nodded.

He wasn’t here for her, after all.

 

* * *

 

They stay in Pendrago for a night longer than planned before they set off again. At first, things seem to be all right. Sorey wakes up with more energy than he had the day before. The group decides to eat breakfast in town. And though Sorey tries his best, he only manages to eat one or two small bites of his muffin.

Rose saves him from thinking too much about it. She eats her omelet and bacon quickly. She stretches, stands, and announces that if he’s ready, she’s ready to get “this show on the road.”

Sorey’s shoulders sag with relief. He nods, and they leave.

But it’s as they are walking through the pastures outside of Pendrago that Rose asks it. And when she does, Mikleo’s not sure _how_ to help Sorey.

“So. Anorexia, huh?”

She had mentioned it earlier, the day before yesterday, when Mikleo had first said something about Sorey not eating “again.” But this time, she’s careful to keep her voice casual. Her hands are folded behind her head.

All the same, Sorey’s eyes snap to her profile and he jumps as soon as she says that word again—“anorexia.” After a beat, he looks away. He raises a gloved hand to scratch at the back of his head. “Yeah. I…I guess.”

Rose turns to him. “You’ve…never heard of that, have you?”

“N-no.” Sorey meets her eyes as well, startled by how perceptive she was.

Rose’s arms fall to her sides. She looks to the Shepherd with newfound curiosity. Her bright blue eyes search his green ones. Sorey leans back a little.

“So all this time,” she murmurs, amazed. “You’ve been doing this without knowing… _anything_?”

“It—hasn’t been _all_ the time—“ Sorey’s moderately surprised when he hears Mikleo’s voice overlapping his own while saying those words. Is Mikleo listening? Maybe the whole _gang_ is. He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

Rose doesn’t seem to have noticed Mikleo’s addition to the conversation. “Well, _yeah._ It’s a _chronic_ thing; I get that. But, still.” After a small pause, the redhead bows her head, hair tickling the line of her jaw. “Sorry. I kind of wish I knew what to say, but I guess I don’t. Anything I _want_ to say probably just sounds rude.”

Sorey just chuckles. “Well, that’s probably more comforting than you might realize,” he says.

Rose looks to her friend again. “Yeah?” She smiles after a moment. “I guess I should have figured. It’s probably better to know that people are telling the truth rather than just telling you what you _want_ to hear.”

“Yeah,” Sorey says back softly, almost hoarse. He clears his throat. “It is.”

Rose’s smile widens. She leans in to the Shepherd again, and this time, Sorey doesn’t lean back. “Then, can I tell you somethin’?”

“Uh, sure?”

Rose grabs Sorey’s hand and breaks their walk. She steps in front of her friend, folds his hand in both of hers. She watches his eyes.

She takes a deep breath. “So, you know how Lailah’s kind of been talking to you about finding your own personal ‘answers’ to stopping the Lord of Calamity, and all?” She watches Sorey until he nods; then she continues. “I just thought you should know that, in case you were wondering, the same kind of thing applies to this.”

Sorey frowns. His brow furrows. She could bet Mikleo was doing the same, or would be, if he materialized. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“Mikleo said that last time, Gramps kind of forced you to start eating again, right?” Rose asks.

Sorey goes quiet.

She continues on. “And that was probably really hard to get through, even if he _meant_ well,” she murmurs. Actually, if she thinks about it, ‘really hard’ is probably an understatement. Rose can only _imagine_ what it was Sorey had felt at the time, what it was he had forced himself to endure. Because Sorey is Sorey, and he would _never_ have complained about it—any of it—even if his life depended on it. “But the thing is, it’s not really fair to force you to get better, even though all of us want you to. Because we _all_ want Sorey healthy and happy.”

Rose’s head tilts to the side as she adds, “But this time, it _has_ to be more than just that. It _has_ to be, does _Sorey_ want Sorey to be healthy and happy, too. You know? It has to be from _you. Your answer_ to _yourself._ ”

…oh.

Sorey stares at Rose. Rose watches Sorey in return.

He replays that question in his mind.

Does Sorey want Sorey to be healthy and happy.

Does _Sorey_ want Sorey to be—

Almost at once—in complete unison—unbidden, the same memory comes to both Mikleo and Sorey’s minds.

 _“I don’t want to_ be _this, Mikleo.”_

And then Lailah makes a small sound.

It’s all the evidence they need to know that that thought hadn’t remained quiet. It had been broadcasted.

Sorey pulls his hand from Rose’s. The look she is suddenly giving him with her aquamarine eyes is too much right now, especially after a glimmer into such a deep and personal memory. It’s too knowing. His stomach swoops.

There’s a long bout of silence.

Dezel breaks it.

“We should keep moving.”

Sorey looks away. He nods.

His palms are _way_ to sweaty for any more hand-holding, he thinks to himself. Not for a long time, at least.

 

* * *

 

Sorey remembers being thirteen and pulling on the fat at his sides. He remembers taking his own skin into his hands and pulling it back, trying to feel his own outline with his fingers. Trying to find and determine his own definition and press his fingers to hidden, knobby bones, trying to see just where it was that he began and just where it was he ended.

Seraphim had no such defined points of existence.

Mikleo could disappear and reappear. He could walk through walls if he wanted. But not Sorey.

Sorey remembers looking down at the image of his skin pulled back and he remembers the concave dip of a hollow stomach.

He would never be able to forget it.

 

* * *

 

They are in the Gaferis Ruins when Sorey can’t sleep.

He lies awake, staring at the ceiling of the room they have bunkered in for the night. His hands are folded over his stomach.

After a moment, Sorey pulls off his gloves. He sets them down beside himself and his sleeping bag and he holds his hands above his face. His fingertips press against one another. Slowly, he rubs them together. He lets the pads of the tips run against the heels of his palms.

When Sorey gets up, he pockets his gloves. He is sure to be quiet as he leaves, though he’s sure he’s not leaving without being watched.

Sorey walks to the next room in the ruins and lets his bare fingers run against the ridges of the closest wall. The act feels like a sin, if he were to be honest; but Sorey thinks just this once that maybe history will forgive him for this selfish deed.

He looks to the ceiling, his hand still pressed to the wall.

Have ruins always felt like such a skeleton, he wonders? As much as this one did? Has he always felt like instead of stone and murals and centuries-old paint, he was touching an ancient creature’s _bones_?

Surely not—and yet, here in the serene and quiet of the dark, with only the firelight behind him to guide his way, Sorey feels like he is treading on holy ground.

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring it with you,” says Mikleo behind him.

Sorey supposes he should not be surprised to hear that voice. He turns and smiles at his friend, his eyes falling upon the Celestial Record in his hand.

Sorey’s smile widens. He shrugs. “I knew _you’d_ bring it,” he points out.

Mikleo rolls his eyes. He walks forward. “Uh-huh,” he mutters. He holds out the book and Sorey takes it gingerly, cradling it with surprising care. Mikleo crosses his arms over his chest as he watches him. His lavender eyes are more amber in the shadows; they remind Sorey of wine. “Figures. I always have to remember what you’re forgetting _for_ you.”

“Guess so!” Sorey chirps, and he laughs a little.

Mikleo chuckles back.

In the warm, comfortable silence that follows, the water seraph gets lost in the deep green of his friend’s eyes. Just for a moment.

Then he clears his throat. He blinks; he gestures his chin towards the book. “Well? Anything in there about this place?”

Sorey softens and looks down at the Celestial Record. He thumbs the spine for a moment, before he shrugs. He opens it to a random page. He turns back towards the wall, and he can feel Mikleo’s eyes on him as he thumbs through. He opens his mouth and he pauses.

“…Mikleo?”

Mikleo’s eyes jump to his face. “Yeah?”

Sorey fingers the page with that depicts the mural of the Shepherd, the one they had found in the St. Mabinogio ruins. He wonders if it’s appropriate, to say what he wants to say. He wonders if it’s the time.

He says it anyway. “Did you know…that I wanted to be a seraph?”

Mikleo doesn’t answer right away. But when he does, it’s softly, subdued. “I guess some part of me must have known,” he admits. “But not really. No.” They’ve never talked about it before.

Sorey nods after a moment. He keeps his eyes on the book before him, in his hands, even though it’s far too dark to read. He appreciates that Mikleo gave him something to hold on to, though, something to look at, while they talk.

Always remembering for him what he was forgetting, indeed.

“I did,” Sorey murmurs.

Mikleo presses his lips together.

Sorey closes the record. He runs his bare hand over its cover. “I think that’s what started it. Maybe. That I wanted…to be like you.”

“…Sorey…”

“I know.” Sorey laughs, and it’s a remorseful sound. He lifts his head to the ceiling of the room again. “That’s not how being a seraph works.”

There’s a long stretch of silence between the two before Sorey speaks again, still facing skyward. “I didn’t…think there was anything to like about being human. It was gross, y’know?” He chuckles at that, but Mikleo doesn’t join him. “Everything about how _I_ had to live and what _I_ needed was so different, while everyone else around me was so…”

Mikleo watches his friend, waiting. But the word doesn’t come.

He tilts his head. “So…?”

Sorey turns to him, and Mikleo doesn’t miss the way his eyes bore into his own as he says it.

“Beautiful.”

A faint flush comes to the seraph’s cheeks.

Sorey blushes too and he laughs a little, more nervously than before. He bows his head to the book in his hands again. He turns it right and left. “But really! I…I’ve never…”

Mikleo watches his friend grapple with what to say next, before he lets his hands fall to his sides. He steps towards Sorey, and when Sorey sees the movement, he tenses. So Mikleo pauses.

When Sorey looks to him, there’s a vulnerability there in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

It reminds the seraph of an unlit hut, and a blanket-wrapped boy with wet green eyes who clung to his own sides as if, if he could claw himself free of the skin he was in and fly away, he would.

Mikleo feels a panging ache in his chest. “Sorey—“ he starts to say.

But Sorey beats him to it.

“I don’t know if I can _find_ my own answer to this, Mikleo,” he says softly. Green eyes implore depths of amaranthine. He turns to face his childhood friend, his other _half_ —his one and only—and his fingers press against the Celestial Record tighter. “I have been living my entire _life_ surrounded by _perfect people_. The only time I ever—“

Sorey sucks in a sharp breath. He blinks hard, and it occurs to Mikleo that there’s a certain, familiar shine to the Shepherd’s eyes as the human looks up and away. Sorey’s brow is furled just the slightest.

“The only time I can think of when I was _happy_ to be human was when I made the decision to become the Shepherd.” There’s a certain tension in Sorey’s face as he turns his gaze to Mikleo again. A hard set to his jaw and line around his eyes that expresses great pain. “I have _never_ been as comfortable, or as proud, as I was in that moment—and I think—I think that was _selfish_ of me.”

Mikleo blinks. “’Selfish’?” he blurts, repeating the word. Practically spitting it out.

Sorey’s face tightens at the echo. He scrambles, like backpedaling, “Gosh, I had _wanted_ to be the Shepherd, Mikleo. Because he was—y’know—and I thought maybe, for once I could—y’know, _I_ could be—“

—and all of a sudden, in one terrible moment, it clicks.

“Be perfect,” Mikleo finishes.

_Be beautiful._

Sorey flinches at the word, at what was left in between, and all at once—for no discernable reason at all except for every single reason of every single year of their life of every single time he had to hold Sorey’s shaking form in his arms—Mikleo’s heart breaks.

“Wait…” Mikleo says, and it’s tight. His throat is tight. Everything is tight.

The seraph puts a hand on his hip; the other goes to his head, fingers digging through his light hair and pressing against the cool of the circlet against his forehead. “…wait. I’ve—I’ve got to try and get this straight.”

So Sorey swallows and he does. He clutches the Celestial Record in his shaking hands right before his chest, as if he could act as some sort of shield or barrier, but he waits.

And Mikleo seems to be at a loss for words. He closes his eyes hard, a strange and pained twist crawling on to his face. “You…call wanting to be the _Shepherd_ ‘selfish’…because you wanted it to make you a better _person_?”

Sorey doesn’t answer, and Mikleo doesn’t know if he should look at him or not. He’s afraid if he does, he won’t be able to stop the water works that threaten to spill as it is already.

“ _And_ —“ –and this isn’t even the _worst part;_ Mikleo almost wants to _laugh_ if he didn’t think it would sound bitter and half like a sob— “—and you, _you,_ who’s the most _frustratingly kind,_ selfless, and _generous_ person in this _entire world_ —you…after all this time, you _still_ think that you’re somehow not _doing_ enough. That you’re somehow not _already perfect…_ already—!”

“…Mikleo…”

Sorey reaches for his friend—and Mikleo snaps.

“ _No_!” he shouts and every year, every day, every _fear_ he ever felt comes crashing out as he shoves that hand away and looks up at Sorey. As he tries to glare at him but there’s too much in his eyes, in his face, and he can’t even _see_ Sorey because of the build-up.

Tears, actual tears, stream down his face and even through them, he looks to Sorey as best he can.

Sorey only looks back, his eyes wide.

Mikleo’s face pinches hard into a frown. With a finger, he shoves Sorey in the chest, and the words just start to tumble from his mouth. He can’t stop them. He can’t control them.

After years and years of companionship and ache and hurt and worry, they just come.

“You—you don’t _get_ to give up!” he shouts. “You don’t get to help the world and not get the chance to help _yourself_! You—! _You_!”

And something in Sorey—something so frightened—so afraid of having made Mikleo angry—suddenly and inexplicably dissolves into something else entirely.  

“We are _going to get through this_ , do you _hear_ me?!” Mikleo suddenly and fiercely continues, choking around the words. Saying them with so much _heart,_ with so much _of himself,_ that it occurs to Sorey how he never once questioned how everything _he_ was experiencing was affecting _him._

And he wonders why he never thought of it before.

“If you can’t find an answer on your own, then _damn it, we_ are going to find an answer! Together! _We_ are going to keep working at this! _We_ are going to get better! _We_ —we’re going to—!”

But Mikleo’s voice breaks before he can continue. So he sobs, trying to stifle it on its way out of his throat. His hand not bunched into a fist flies to his mouth. “We…! We’ll…”

“…yeah.”

Sorey responds in a whisper.

Mikleo’s eyes dart up to his human’s face.

Sorey has a look that says his own voice will not hold out long, but he steps towards Mikleo. He extends his arms. And this time, when Mikleo falls into him, the seraph’s arms grasp him around his back, clinging to him like a lifeline.

Sorey presses his cheek to the top of Mikleo’s head. He swallows hard past the lump in his throat. He murmurs, “Yeah, we will, Mikleo. _We_ will.”

And Mikleo closes his eyes and turns his face into Sorey’s chest. He tightens his hold. His exhale is shaky, relieved.

“Thank you.”

It comes out as just a whisper. But for a moment, it is the world.

Mikleo breathes Sorey in, and breathes Sorey out.

The fire at their backs feels warmer than before.

 

* * *

 

They are twelve, and they are sitting in front of a mural.

They don’t know what their future holds.

They don’t know who they will grow up to be.

All they know is that they’re dirty, they’re tired, and they’re far from home. They are sure Gramps has the entire village of Elysia looking for them, at this rate. It’s dark outside and very cold. They’ve decided to make camp and wait to be found.

The fire at their side warms their chilled skin. They huddle close to it, keeping as little contact with the cold stone floor as possible. They pull their knees up to their chins.

Sorey clasps his hands around his legs, looking up at the depicted battle displayed before them.  

It’s not the first time that it occurs to him that maybe he should be afraid in a moment like this. After all, they can’t find their way home. They’re completely and utterly lost, stranded in this maze of a ruin. It’s far too dark to find their way around. Neither of them can see anything, and what if they run into a hellion? What then?

Yet.

At the same time, all Sorey can feel here, in this room, with Mikleo by his side, both of them scratched up, and cold, and still _lost_ …isn’t fear at all.

It’s comfort.

He looks to Mikleo, and a broad smile stretches across his face. His Elysalark earrings jingle with the movement. And somehow, all Sorey can think of to say is, _Y’know, I think we’re gonna be okay_. His chest swells with warmth and courage at the thought, full of _hope_ as he looks at his best friend. _I’ve got you with me, y’know?_

Mikleo looks back at him. In the firelight, he looks so pale, so ghost-like. But at Sorey’s smile, he gentles. He smiles too.

 _Yeah,_ he almost seems to say back, though Sorey ended up not saying anything at all. _We’ll be just fine._

And they were.


End file.
